1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a latch assembly used for sliding doors of electric product accommodation boxes, display cases, vehicles and so forth.
2. Prior Art
In a well-known latch assembly having a casing thereof secured to a sliding door, an L-shaped latch is pivoted by a transversal pin to the casing at an intersection between a finger application arm and a latch arm thereof. The latch arm has a free end portion provided on the back side thereof with a latch projection, which can be engaged in and disengaged from a hole formed in a striker secured to a stationary frame of a display case or the like, the L-shaped latch being rotationally biased in the latching direction by a torsion spring, and the latch projection has its front edge face formed with an inclined cam face.
In this latch assembly, immediately before the sliding door being moved in the closing direction is fully closed, the inclined cam face is brought into frictional contact with an edge surface of the striker to cause slight rotation of the L-shaped latch in the direction opposite to the direction of biasing by the torsion spring. Thus, the latch arm rides on the striker. When the sliding door is completely closed, the L-shaped latch is rotated in the latching direction by the biasing force of the torsion spring, causing its latch projection to be engaged in the hole of the striker. The engagement between the hole and latch projection is held by the spring force of the torsion spring, thus holding the sliding door in the latched position.
With this prior art latch assembly, however, the hole of the striker is a rectangular hole, and also the latch projection has a rectangular sectional profile. Therefore, if there is a departure from the design position of either or both of the striker and casing so that the striker hole and latch projection fail to be aligned accurately, the rectangular sectional profile of the latch projection fails to overlap the rectangular hole. In consequence, an edge of the sectional profile of the latch projection is caught by an edge portion of the striker around the rectangular hole thereof, thus resulting in the failure of engagement between the latch projection and striker hole.